Over a period of more than 14 hours, the Berlin hearings investigated the responsibility of a range of actors in the decades-long Congo conflict.
Photograph: Daniel Seiffert

“Silence, s’il vous plait,” the young court usher said, and an immediate hush descended on the room. “All rise, the court is now in session,” he ordered, and the public stood abruptly as the judge and chief investigator swept into the court in black robes.

A man with a clapper board appeared and a voice from stage left said: “Das Kongo tribunal, Session 3. Action!”

The smack of the clapper board reminded the audience that they were not, in fact, in a court room, but on a set. The voice was that of Milo Rau, a Swiss director who with his company, the International Institute of Political Murder, has brought the Congo conflict right into the heart of Europe, in one of the most ambitious pieces of political theatre ever staged.

Held last weekend, Rau has set out to create an “unvarnished portrait” of the war in Congo, which he believes is one of the most extensive economic conflicts in human history, estimated to have claimed anything between five and seven million lives in hundreds of massacres over the past 20 years, all of which have gone unpunished.

“Why this war has continued to rage is no longer to do with ethnic antagonism, but commodities, like coltan, niobium, or cassiterite, which are seen as essential to our 21st century lives, and are to be found in abundance in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Rau told the Guardian, ahead of the Berlin sessions.

“My impression is that everything and everyone from the immediate neighbours, the rebel organisations, the international mining companies, even the government and the NGOs, profit from the perpetual chaos. This is nothing but a war economy,” he said.

Over a period of more than 14 hours, the Berlin hearings investigated the responsibility of a range of actors in the conflict, including international corporations, the World Bank, the United Nations and NGOs, and of course, the governments, past and present, of Congo itself.

Information flooded the audience in a mixture of French, German and English, and in the DRC a live ticker from the court room gave a minute by minute report for those followers who had been at the Bukavu event, according to Congolese diplomats in Berlin.

Congo: service shop to the world

Foreign mining companies came under particular scrutiny in the tribunal, accused of taking advantage of the conditions of a failed state, allowing them to operate tax free; dismiss former workers; and relocate whole communities to inadequate sites, leaving residents without compensation – all with the alleged support of the World Bank.

One hundred years on, the people of Congo are still a victim of the exploitation of (Congo’s) riches and resources

Vital Kamerhe, DRC presidential candidate

“Parts of the Congo became like a self-service shop,” Sylvestre Bisimwa, a Congolese lawyer and the chief investigator, told the tribunal. “Transnational plundering of major dimensions took place.” He gave the example of a village that was moved to an uninhabitable hillside by a mining company which had bought the gold mining rights from former president Mobutu Sese Seko – one of many thousands of examples, Bisimwa said, of how an international corporation simply moved in and taken over.

Bisimwa said that while many violations of the law had been perpetrated by corporations, none of the crimes had ever come to court. “It should actually be possible to fight these cases legally, but this has never happened in Congo,” he claimed.

Berlin was chosen as the stage for the second part of the tribunal because of the role it originally played in the 19th century rush by the colonialist empires to parcel out the continent between them, known as the “scramble for Africa”.

Mila Rau and his team during filming in the DRC. A film of the project is due to be released in Autumn 2016. Photograph: The Congo Tribunal

Set in the capital’s popular fringe theatre, the Sophiensaele, Vital Kamerhe, leading presidential candidate for the November 2016 elections, told the tribunal: “Berlin, you have been instrumental in shaping my fate.” A century ago, he said, it was ivory and rubber which saw corporations piling in to plunder his country. Now, interests have been transferred onto commodities such as coltan – used extensively in mobile technology – deposits of which in Eastern Congo are greater than anywhere else in the world.

“One hundred years on, the people of Congo are still a victim of the exploitation of (Congo’s) riches and resources,” the politician said, in what was one of the more emotional speeches during the often dry and highly intellectual hearing.

The hearings have shown that the truth can come to light, and have given victims a chance to speak for the first time

Jean-Louis Gilissen, chief judge

In the dock too were, perhaps surprisingly to some, many of the NGOs who have had a presence in Congo. Linda Polman, a Dutch journalist and one of the most vocal critics of international relief organisations gave a searing critique of what she called the “humanitarian aid industry”, arguing that it was rarely accountable enough and too often shortsighted.

Aid workers and foreign soldiers too often lack local knowledge, language or cultural sensibilities, she said, citing in particular the so-called Blue Helmets of the UN.

She stressed it was time to: “consider aid as an industry, rather than the image we have of it as Mother Theresa,” and called on all organisations to sign up to a code of conduct.

The jury agreed. Consisting of various figures from the world of law, civil rights, business and philosophy, it included Wolfgang Kaleck, who represents the whistleblower Edward Snowden, Marc-Antoine Vumilia Muhindo, a controversial former politician, and Dutch sociologist and leading globalisation critic, Saskia Sassen.

While some jury members expressed their frustration at the limitations of the tribunal – which unlike a real trial will not lead to any prosecutions – the chief judge Jean-Louis Gilissen said having seen the effect of the Bukavu hearings on the participants, he would fully support the idea of turning the theatre trial into something more substantial.

Gilissen, who works as a counsel at the international criminal court where he has represented child soldiers in trials against Congolese militia, said that after sessions in Bukavu the participants “came together and were discussing the issues in a constructive way. It was amazing to see.”

Kamerhe said of the proceedings: “Both the Berlin and Bukavu hearings have shown that the truth can come to light, and they have given victims the chance to speak for the very first time, which is at the very least cathartic.

“We are happy that this has now been addressed in Berlin – that is a sign of hope for the Congolese that the world is listening. This should be continued.”

Milo Rau’s film The Congo Tribunal is due to be released in Autumn 2016